I'll go with cheeks on this one. Trading anything without paper-trading your system first is almost a sure means of losing money. If your plan doesn't work on paper, it sure isn't going to work in real-time trading, and the time to find that out is before you put your capital on the line. As for trading SPY and QQQ, that may teach you how to trade SPY and QQQ, and you may learn a few principles of trading that are applicable to any vehicle, but if you want to learn how to trade the ES and NQ, then trade the ES and NQ. You'd be amazed at how much money you can lose even if you're trading only one contract if you don't have a plan that is well-thought-out and that you know how to and can execute. And losing all that money says little about you as a trader other than your lack of preparedness. So develop your plan first. Work out the kinks first. Paper-trade it first. Then any subsequent problems that arise are more likely to have to do with you as a trader and not your plan. --Db
Needed? None. If you're just starting and aren't even sure if futures are for you, you can get your feet wet at no cost if you have an IB account. Simply download QuoteTracker, which is free, select IB as your data feed, which is also free, and you're in business. This beats a simulator as you're using the datafeed you'll be using for real, and you're using the charting program you'll be using for real. If you paper-trade properly, you won't be off your practice fills by more than a tick. The disadvantage to QT is that there are no historical intraday charts. However, if you don't mind spending $40, you can subscribe to SierraCharts (.com). They don't provide historical intraday charts either, but you can save your charts on your hard drive, and after a few weeks have gone by, you'll have enough data to do some simple backtesting. In the meantime, you've got charts to review at the end of the day and at the end of the week. SierraCharts also enables you to use IB as a datafeed. --Db
Try the $85 esignal 1st 30 days free. Get volume, alerts, Delayed data vs. Sierra it seems to offer a little more value though not the bottom line cheapest.
I should have mentioned that IB is real-time; therefore, QT and Sierra would be real-time as well, though he may not care about that. As for volume, that may not be relevant depending on the system, but IB doesn't provide it yet in case it's wanted. But whatever you do, avoid QCharts --Db
Go to www.futuresource.com and get a free trial of their Simulator that includes charts. You will get realtime depth of market for the Minis and any other CME or CBOT product. The system has the ability to singl-clicke trade, while viewing the charts in REAL-TIME.
If you are going to trade the SPY's or QQQ's in anticipation of moving up to the emini contracts, make sure that your trades are based on the ES or NQ prices. If you would be using limit orders on ES or NQ and your methodology is based on that, then wait until the contract trades through your limit price before assuming that you would have got filled. You will experience more slippage and commissions doing this but it is a good way to learn. I trade ES and NQ strategies by first trading 100 SPY or QQQ but never look at charts of them. All my trades are based on looking at the emini charts.
Paper trading is worthless, and I would say destructive. It totally removes the mental aspect which is 90% of the game. Instead, trade the smallest size possible, whether it's 1 mini or 100 shares. Jay